The “$795 BOMB SHELTER” billboard in this photo of the May Company department store at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax caught my eye. I tend to think of bomb shelters as being a 1950s thing, but the 1948 Studebaker at the far indicates this is probably from the late ‘40s. At a not-cheap $795, I wonder how many of those bomb shelters they sold. We also get to see what stood at the opposite corner. It looks like a corner market was there before the Googie-style Johnie’s Coffee Shop was built in 1956. Back then, it was called Romeo’s Time Square.

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